An Acceptable Marriage (BOOK 5)

Chapter 11

"Oh, Lizzy! do anything rather than marry without affection." 

― Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

Arabella was not able to sleep after Bertram left. She lay in bed, her cheeks still flaming with embarrassment as she stared up at the canopy. Why had she sent him away? Why had she not been able to respond to his kiss?

She had been wary of the idea of kissing him, of having him touch her, but she thought she'd be able to manage the situation when it arose. But when his tongue had started moving she'd become frozen with alarm; how was she supposed to react to that? What was she supposed to have done? At the time it had not seemed like a natural thing at all.

The idea of it going any farther made her feel slightly ill.

She closed her eyes tightly, tucking her knees to her stomach and willing herself not to start crying again.

What was wrong with her? This was something she knew she'd have to do, so why had she been so unprepared? Was she too young for this? She'd never kissed another man after all, perhaps the physical attraction would grow as the marriage progressed. Maybe this was normal, maybe Lilly and Alice went through the same things on their wedding nights.

But somehow she doubted it. She was certain there was a step missing somewhere here, certain that she should be feeling things that she wasn't currently feeling.

She tried to block out those thoughts as best she could, filling her head instead with thoughts of her family at Bingham Park and what they would be up to.

But it only made the tears come faster.

Here she was, miles from home, crying and alone on her wedding night. This was not at all how she imagined it was supposed to go.

She fell asleep eventually, but it was not an easy sleep and she woke up several times during the night, her eyes snapping open as confusion and fear filled her head, her mind thrashing around for where she could possibly be.

"London," she breathed aloud when she awoke for the third time. "I'm in London in Bertram's, no, in my home and there is nothing to fear."

The first two times she'd woken up she'd been able to go right back to sleep but it seemed she would not be as fortunate this time.

The room was totally dark, the fire having died out completely sometime during the night.

Arabella remembered seeing a candle on her bedside table and she fumbled around for it, her fingers finding the box of matches first. She picked it up and struck one, the flickering light bringing some comfort to her.

Once the candle was lit and she was more awake she felt better.

She stood up and opened the curtains to look out at the dark street. Across from the house was another almost identical one with all their curtains shut tightly against the night. One house, a few left of the one across the Cooks', had a lit window in it and behind the curtain Arabella could see the silhouette of someone, probably a man by the size, sitting down in an armchair, engrossed by a book.

Other than herself the reading man there were no signs of life on the street.

She felt a strange kind of kinship with the reading man; it seems they were the only ones awake in the dark of night, keeping each other company in a detached sort of way. Perhaps he wasn't able to sleep either, or perhaps he was so absorbed in this book he hadn't noticed how late the hour had grown. That had often happened to Lilly when they were younger. She appear at breakfast in the morning with dark circles under her eyes and another finished tome under her arm, ready to return it to the library.